Wednesday, January 7, 2015

State Security Indictments, Cult Trials Up in Xi Jinping's 2013

Zhao Haitong, seen in a detention center, was reportedly arrested in August 2013 and sentenced to 14 years in October 2014 for crimes including inciting subversion. Zhao was one of many arrested for ESS crimes during 2013, Xi's first year as party secretary. Photo credit: RFA

Statistics recently released in China Law Yearbook (CLY) call into question earlier data reported by the Supreme People’s Procuratorate (SPP) and indicate that in 2013 indictments for crimes of endangering state security (ESS) reached the second highest level on record. The authoritative compendium typically includes arrest and indictment data for ESS—the category of crimes that comprises the most serious political offenses including subversion, splittism, and their incitement—and for the first time, provides data on the number of trials for cult offenses used to prosecute Falun Gong and other banned religious groups.

In contrast with past editions, the CLY published in 2014 does not refer explicitly to ESS in its accounting of arrests and indictments approved or made by the SPP. These numbers are not difficult to calculate, however, since the SPP work report for 2013 states that ESS statistics are aggregated with those of endangering national defense interests (ENDI) and dereliction of military duty (DMD), and the CLY provides disaggregated data for the latter categories.

This arithmetic shows that in 2013 the SPP indicted 1,384 individuals in 607 ESS cases, up 32 and 57 percent year-on-year, respectively. The number of individuals indicted for ESS in 2013 is the second highest figure reported in the CLY since reporting began in 1998. The highest figure was reached in 2008 when Tibetan protests contributed to a total of 1,407 indictments. Dui Hua’s previous estimate of ESS indictments for 2013 was based on a SPP work report released in March 2014, which may significantly underreport this figure. The higher numbers provided in the CLY are not only more authoritative but more in line with the conditions on the ground. Despite the discrepancy in figures, Dui Hua maintains that in 2013 the procuratorate frequently used other crimes (e.g., “picking quarrels and provoking trouble” and “illegal assembly”) as proxies for ESS crimes making the increase in ESS indictments all the more staggering.

The change in the number of arrests was less dramatic. We calculate that the SPP authorized public security and state security organs to arrest 937 individuals involved in 532 ESS cases in 2013. Compared with 2012, this represents an 18 percent decrease in individuals arrested but a 12 percent increase in cases. An average of 1.76 and 2.33 individuals were arrested in each ESS case in 2013 and 2012, respectively.

The 2014 CLY does not provide disaggregated data for ESS trials, and unlike the SPP, the Supreme People’s Court does not provide notation that indicates how to arrive at this data. Given substantial growth in the number of ESS indictments nationwide and ESS trials in Xinjiang, where most of these trials occur, Dui Hua believes that there was an increase in the number of ESS trials concluded in China in 2013. We previously estimated that the number of ESS trials in Xinjiang grew 10 percent to 300 trials of first instance in 2013. Nationwide, 369 ESS first-instance trials were concluded in 2012.

A lack of transparency in ESS cases continues to be a serious hurdle to protecting the rights of prisoners of conscience. Of the hundreds of people who faced ESS charges in 2013, only 31 made it into Dui Hua’s Political Prisoner Database (PPDB) as arrested, indicted, or tried. More than half of them are Tibetans implicated in self-immolation protests. Others are Han Chinese activists who called on government officials to disclose their assets through small-scale street protests. Although Xinjiang typically accounts for the majority of the ESS cases nationwide, we have discovered the names of just three Uyghurs sentenced for inciting splittism in that year.

Known Individuals Facing Endangering State Security Charges, 2013

Name

Type (Arrested: A,
Indicted: I, Tried: T)

Province

Charge(s)

Sentence

Release
Date

Abdusalam Abulat
阿不都萨拉木•阿卜来提

T

Xinjiang

Inciting splittism

10 years

Apr 2023

Abulkerim Mehmet
阿卜力克木•买买提

T

Xinjiang

Inciting splittism

4 years

Apr 2017

Cerzha
才扎

A

Qinghai

Inciting splittism

-

-

Chakdor
恰多

T

Sichuan

inciting splittism

4 years

2016

Choejor
曲乔

T

Tibet

Inciting splittism

13 years

2026

Dorje
多吉

T

Qinghai

Inciting splittism

2.5 years

May 2015

Gu Yimin
顾义民

I

Jiangsu

Inciting subversion

1.5 years

Nov 2014

Gyadehor
加德合

T

Qinghai

Inciting splittism

4 years

Feb 2017

Hortsang Tamdrin
霍仓丹真

T

Sichuan

Inciting splittism

4.5 years

Oct 2017

Jigme Tanke
久买谈克

T

Qinghai

Inciting splittism

5 years

2018

Kelsang Dangzhi
尕藏当智

T

Qinghai

Inciting splittism

6 years

2019

Kerem Mehmet
克热木•买买提

T

Xinjiang

Inciting splittism

10 years

2023

Kunchok Choephel
贡却曲培

T

Tibet

Inciting splittism

6 years

Nov 2019

Liu Benqi
刘本琦

I

Qinghai

Inciting subversion

3 years

Jul 2015

Liu Jiacai
刘家财

A

Hubei

Inciting subversion

-

-

Lolo
洛洛

T

Qinghai

Inciting splittism

6 years

2018

Lobsang
落桑

T

Qinghai

Inciting splittism

4 years

2017

Huang Wenxun
黄文勋

A

Hubei

Inciting subversion*

4 years

Jun 2017

Pema Trinley
白玛赤列

T

Sichuan

Inciting splittism

4 years

2016

Phagpa
普化

T

Qinghai

Inciting splittism, murder

13 years

2025

Tenzin Rangdol
丹增让卓

T

Tibet

Inciting splittism

5 years

Oct 2018

Topden
多丹

T

Tibet

Inciting splittism

5 years

Oct 2018

Trinley Tsekar
赤列次嘎

T

Tibet

Inciting splittism

9 years

2021

Tselha
次拉

T

Tibet

Inciting splittism

3 years

2016

Wang XX
王xx

T

Hunan

Inciting subversion

3 years

Jul 2015

Yang Lin
杨林

A

Guangdong

Inciting subversion

-

-

Yuan Bing
袁兵

A

Hubei

Inciting subversion*

-

-

Yang Wei
杨微

A

Guangdong

Inciting subversion

-

-

Yuan Xiaohua
袁小华

A

Hubei

Inciting subversion*

-

-

Zhao Haitong
赵海通

A

Xinjiang

Inciting subversion**

14 years

Aug 2027

*This charge was later changed to gathering a crowd to disrupt traffic.
** May include other charges. Source: Dui Hua

Known Cult Crime Sentences by Group, 2013

Source: Dui Hua Foundation

Expanding the official picture of prisoners of conscience, the 2014 CLY provides a first-ever accounting of trials of first instance for Article 300: “leading or using a cult to undermine implementation of the law.” The yearbook said that the number of so-called cult trials rose nearly 60 percent year-on-year to 1,554 trials in 2013.

As compared with information on ESS cases, information on Article 300 cases is typically more accessible. Dui Hua’s PPDB documents about a third (517) of the individuals tried in 2013. Falun Gong accounted for 65 percent of known cases, with Almighty God accounting for 32 percent and unorthodox Protestant sects such as Spirit Sect and Society of Disciples making up about 3 percent.

2013 was Xi Jinping’s first year as party secretary, and in that year, he oversaw roughly three times as many ESS arrests and indictments as Hu Jintao did in 2003, Hu’s first year as party secretary. In Xi’s second year even more people are likely to have faced ESS charges, as policing increased in Xinjiang and the nationwide crackdown on dissent continued.